French Market Retreats

4/13/2012 6:27 AM ET

The French market fell on Friday, after the Chinese economy expanded at the weakest pace in nearly three years in the first quarter, fuelling concerns of a hard-landing. Technology stocks came under pressure after India's Infosys Technologies warned of a challenging year ahead.

China's gross domestic product expanded 8.1 percent year-on-year in the first three months of 2012, slower than the fourth quarter's 8.9 percent increase, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. The latest result was the weakest in 11 quarters. Economists expected a slowdown in growth to 8.4 percent.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks is declining 1.28 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes some major U.K. companies, is losing 0.84 percent.

The CAC 40 index is currently losing 0.91 percent.

Peugeot is declining 3.1 percent and Renault is losing 1.5 percent.

Cap Gemini and STMicroelectronics are retreating about 3 percent each.

In the U.S., futures point to a lower open on Wall Street. In the previous session, the major averages closed firmly in positive territory, near their best levels of the day. The Dow jumped 1.4 percent, the Nasdaq surged 1.3 percent and the S&P 500 soared 1.4 percent.

In the commodity space, crude for May delivery is sliding $0.57 to $103.07 per barrel and June gold is falling $7.7 to $1672.9 a troy ounce.